NewsWrap
for the week ending January 18th, 1997
(As broadcast on THIS WAY OUT Program #460,
distributed 01-20-97)
[Compiled & written by Cindy Friedman, with thanks to Brian Nunes, Jason Lin,
Ron Buckmire, Graham Underhill, Adam Sofen, Giney Villar, Rex Wockner, Lucia
Chappelle and Greg Gordon]
An Israeli gay man has been awarded a spousal military pension for his
deceased partner. Acting as an appeals body, the Tel Aviv District Court
ruled that to deny him military pension benefits an unmarried heterosexual
partner would qualify for would be discrimination based on gender. That's
the same kind of reasoning used by the Hawai'i state Supreme Court in the
celebrated case that may lead to legal same-gender marriages there.
Adir Steiner said the court viewed him as the common-law spouse of the late
Colonel Doron Maisel based on their sharing a home and finances and on the
public recognition of their relationship. Steiner had won complete
acceptance not only from Maisel's family but also from his military
colleagues, who invited Steiner to the same public functions as other
officers' wives. Although Steiner and Maisel were sexually exclusive, that
was not significant in the court's decision, since heterosexual couples are
not required to prove anything regarding their sexual relations to qualify as
common-law spouses.
Maisel died of cancer in 1991 after some seven years of partnership with
Steiner. The Israeli Defense Force originally rejected Steiner's claim for
the pension. Steiner's attorney believes the current ruling will extend
pension benefits to gay and lesbian partnerships throughout the public
sector, including not only military personnel, but also such government
employees as police and teachers. That's in contrast to the famous 1994
Israeli High Court ruling that gave an El Al Airlines employee spousal travel
benefits for his gay partner, a ruling which dealt only with a private
company's employment contract.
The world's largest airline, United, is being forced to consider a domestic
partners benefits policy by a new San Francisco law. The San Francisco
Board of Supervisors recently enacted a first-of-its-kind law requiring that
companies contracting with the city extend their employees' gay and lesbian
partners the same benefits they provide legal spouses -- and United has a
slew of contracts because of its major operations at San Francisco
International Airport. Although the law itself doesn't go into effect until
June 1st, additional legislation required its implementation for any
long-term contracts that came up in the interim. To comply, United would
have to extend domestic partners benefits not only to its thousands of San
Francisco area employees, but to all its 86,000 employees worldwide.
Although United has been considering such a move, and has marketed heavily
to the gay and lesbian community, it may well contest the city's requirement.
The tabloid "outing" of Tory Member of the British Parliament Jerry Hayes
appears not to have damaged his standing with his constituents -- or his wife
-- because they just don't believe it. This week the Executive Council of
the Harlow Conservative Constituency Association unanimously reaffirmed Hayes
as their chosen candidate in Britain's upcoming elections. Hayes' wife spoke
to the media and completely denied his alleged sexual relationship with gay
activist Paul Stone. Although there is no denying that Hayes and Stone had a
close friendship beginning in 1991, Hayes claims it was never sexual, despite
publication of his own infatuated love letters to Stone. At the time Stone
says the affair began, he was 18 years old and the British age of consent for
homosexual acts had not yet been lowered from 21. Hayes has been both a
strong advocate for gays and lesbians and visible in the media as a sterling
example of the "family values" theme now featured in the Tories' elections
campaign.
The popular British-based erotic magazine "EuroBoy" is changing its name to
"EuroGuy" to avoid prosecution under a new U.S. law. The so-called Child
Pornography Protection Act was sneaked through at the end of the 1996
legislative session attached to a finance bill. It makes it a criminal
offense to show people engaged in sexual activity in a way that may lead
consumers to believe any participant is under age 18, regardless of the
model's actual age. Punishments can run to 30 years' imprisonment and fines
with no upper limit. Attorneys for "EuroBoy" publisher Prowler Press have
advised them that using "boy" in the magazine's name is "like waving a red
flag", and U.S. distributors of the magazine have already burned thousands of
copies. But although "boy" signifies a child in the U.S., it's commonly used
by European gays to mean simply anyone under 30. U.S. media are organizing
to challenge the law in court, with the new heterosexual movie "Lolita"
expected to be the plaintiff in a test case. Prowler Press is struggling
with the question of how to deal with their marketing without using terms
such as boy bands, playboys and cowboys.
In California, about 500 young gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgenders
descended on the state government in Sacramento this week for the second
annual Youth Lobby Day. They called on legislators to recognize the needs of
sexual minority youth, to support AIDS prevention programs, and to prohibit
discrimination based on sexual orientation. The climactic event was a rally
at the Capitol, where the enthusiastic crowd cheered the speakers and booed
references to anti-gay Republican Governor Pete Wilson. Openly lesbian
California Assemblymembers Carole Migden and Sheila Kuehl addressed the
crowd, in addition to young people who described their personal experiences
of harassment and encouraged each other to be proud and demand to be heard.
Kuehl has reintroduced a measure to add "sexual orientation" as a protected
class under the state's anti-discrimination policy for public schools.
In the Philippines, there's considerable energy and growing activism among
gays and lesbians, but getting organized on a national scale is a major
challenge. This week, two groups announced their plans for major national
gay and lesbian conferences to take place at almost the same time, which may
be more than the Philippines' fledgling movement can handle.
Babaylan, the gay group at the University of the Philippines, prepared for a
national conference by holding the first in a series of national meetings of
gay and lesbian leaders this week. It was a first attempt by groups who have
not worked together before to address their common concerns. But because
there were only a handful of lesbians among the 50 participants, the women
felt a need to meet separately to prevent their issues from being lost amidst
the overwhelming male majority. Both the lesbian caucus and the pre-arranged
workshops addressed issues of coming out, identity, economic issues,
politics, and the place of gays and lesbians in society. Most of the same
participants will meet again in February to develop a working structure for
organizing the national conference, after discussing the first session with
their various constituencies.
Meanwhile, another group, PROGAY, the Progressive Organization of Gays in the
Philippines, was announcing its plans for a conference to the international
media, saying they hope to unify "grassroots" gays and lesbians to achieve
more representation in the national arena. PROGAY had been expected to
attend the Babaylan meeting, but didn't make it. They caught the attention
of the wire services with a demonstration protesting Philippine President
Fidel Ramos' plans for a national computerized identification system. Ramos
believes the I.D. cards will help both to combat fraud and to expedite
business transactions and government services. Opponents say it will stifle
dissent, and PROGAY is concerned at how easy it would be to encode data such
as gender identity, sexual orientation and HIV status.
Cobb County, Georgia has a new group of County Commissioners since
November's elections, and in making a fresh start they're leaving behind the
County's notorious resolution condemning what it called "the homosexual
lifestyle". That resolution was passed by the County in 1993 largely at the
instigation of Commission Chair Bob Byrne, who said this week, "the
resolution is officially behind us with our new board coming on. That is a
good place to leave it.... There will not be a similar resolution introduced
to that magnitude. As Chairman, I can assure you of that." Byrne and the
former Commission had clung to the resolution despite a firestorm of
controversy, including boycotts by the Olympic Games and the Tour Dupont
bicycle race, and even Byrne's daughter coming out publicly as a lesbian to
denounce the measure. But it never represented the opinion of most of the
County's residents or businesses, and continuing pressure from the group Cobb
Citizens Coalition has finally buried it. The Coalition will now focus on
establishing protections from harassment for the County's students.
And finally ... the U.S. has been waiting for weeks to see if the title
character of the ABC-TV sitcom "Ellen" will be the first to come out as a
lesbian, and now will have to wait until May to find out. Star Ellen
DeGeneres has been playing it cute and coy through a series of media
appearances that have failed to help the show's declining ratings. But while
taping an episode January 10th, singing a song the character writes at a rock
'n' roll fantasy camp, DeGeneres ended the third take singing, "So here's
what I have to say ... And by the way, I'm gay! It's OK! I'm gay! I'm
gay!" The audience screamed and cheered as she continued repeating, "I'm
gay! I'm gay!" to the end of the song. However, a spokesperson for ABC
insists it was an ad lib that will never be broadcast.
---------*---------
Sources for this week's report included: The Associated Press; Business
Wire; The Hong Kong Standard; The Jerusalem Post; The London Times; The
Pasadena (CA) Star-News; Reuter News Service; The San Francisco Chronicle;
The San Francisco Examiner; United Press International; and cyberpress
releases from GLAAD (the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation); the
Cobb Citizens Coalition; incite!; Prowler Press; and SQUIRM.